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U.S. Births Hit A 43-Year Low, Kenneth M. Johnson

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief, Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that there were only 3,591,000 births in the United States in 2023, according to new data from National Center for Health Statistics. This is the fewest U.S. births since 1979, when the U.S. population was 225.1 million compared to 340 million in 2023. Births diminished because fertility rates declined significantly among women in their teens and twenties.

The long-term impact of the fertility decline has been substantial. Had 2007 fertility patterns been sustained through 2023, there would have been 10.6 million more births in the last 16 years.

A critical long-term …

Population Gains Continue In New Hampshire, But The Pace Varies, Kenneth M. Johnson

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief, Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson reports that New Hampshire’s population reached 1,402,054 on July 1, 2023, an increase of 24,500 residents since April 1, 2020, according to new Census Bureau estimates. New Hampshire gained 3,100 residents last year compared to 11,500 and 8,800 in the two preceding years, respectively. The state gained population even though it had 6,600 more deaths than births in the past three years because nearly 31,000 more people moved to the state than left it.

All ten of New Hampshire’s counties gained population between 2020 and 2023, compared to 52 percent of all …

New Hampshire Employees Working In Small Firms Lack Access To Paid Family And Medical Leave, Kristin E. Smith

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief, author Kristin Smith reports that in December 2022, just prior to the launch of the NH Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, 40 percent of New Hampshire workers did not have access to paid medical, parental, or family leave. In its first year, the program reached 14,712 workers or less than 3 percent of Granite State workers. Workers in small firms report lower rates of access than workers in larger firms. Women also have lower access to paid leave than men. In addition to a lack of awareness, low enrollment may be linked to NH Paid Family …

Large Pool Of New Voters Could Add Volatility To New Hampshire Primary, Kenneth M. Johnson, Andrew Smith, Dante Scala

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson, Andrew Smith, and Dante Scala note a greater likelihood of volatility in the New Hampshire primary because there will be many new faces among the voters who flock to the polls on January 23. The New Hampshire electorate has experienced significant turnover since the 2020 primary. More than one-fifth of New Hampshire’s potential primary voters this year are new because in 2020 they were not old enough to vote or resided somewhere else. The ideology and political party allegiances of these young people and new migrants differ significantly from those of longtime residents. In …

Developing A Gender Diverse Stimulus Set For Emotion Expressions, Amir Robertson

Honors Theses and Capstones

Much past research has demonstrated that gender plays an important role in emotion perception, such that gendered stereotypes about emotion seem to shape how we perceive and interpret the emotion expressions of men and women. However, the stimulus sets that are typically used in the vast majority of this research have been based on binary ideas of gender, and purposefully limit common elements of gender presentation, with models posing with limited accessories or personal aesthetic choices. In everyday life, however, individuals’ gender and gender presentation are not limited in these ways and likely contribute in important ways to how we …

Does Hookup Culture Silence Women?, Kylee Rose Rock

Honors Theses and Capstones

The issue of hookup culture on college campuses is of concern to many feminist scholars, given the alarming rates of sexual assault and unsafe sexual experiences in the college setting. This essay argues that hookup culture has the ability to silence women by means of the social landscape which college-aged adults find themselves in today. Further, this essay examines the social experiences of young women on college campuses, and advocates for a change in social habits and scripts through reconsidering our approach to the anti-porn movement in today’s modern culture. Drawing upon literature from Rae Langton’s work, "Speech Acts and …